A Bang-Up Finale

Gallery

Pat Monk's Explosive Creativity

A former Manhattan Project physicist spends his twilight years creating dynamic sculptures in Alexandria.

» LAUNCH PHOTO GALLERY

A NEW LIGHT-BLUE TOYOTA PRIUS SITS IN MONK'S DRIVEWAY, a purchase necessitated by an accident last fall, when the driver of an 18-wheeler didn't see the sculptor's little Saturn and plowed into it. Monk somehow emerged intact.

It helps to have a sense of humor at times like those, and he does -- a quiet one that sometimes emerges at unexpected moments. As he crunches slowly through the dried-up leaves blanketing the yard, he stops at an eight-foot twisted loop of stainless steel. "This is 'The Gateway to Enlightenment,'?"

he says, poker-faced. "You walk through there, and you get enlightened. Try it." And he points out a favorite, a 6-by-9-foot steel depiction of a plump woman seated and bent over to tie her shoe. It's called "Mama Dressing for the Game," And, he adds, "of course, it's the game of life."

Monk paints, too. But, he says, he likes the fact that a sculpture doesn't transport you to another world, as a painting might. Instead, it "intrudes into your universe. The fact that you have to walk around it, and it steals part of your space, is part of the deal."

It's as though, for Monk, creating art isn't a way to escape reality, but to look it in the eye.

And sometimes people give him money for the privilege. The most expensive piece he's ever sold, he thinks, was about $30,000, a wall sculpture for a telephone company in England. A lawyer from Chicago bought that cannonball sculpture 20 years ago for "an absurdly low price like $800," Monk says. Last year St. Andrew's Episcopal Church in Arlington commissioned a memorial from Monk, an eight-foot-tall steel representation of a white oak tree, for about $6,000. Mary Hourihan Lynch, an artist who creates shaped-canvas sculptures on the third floor at the Torpedo Factory, says she has three of his pieces, and "I would have more of them if I could."

Tourists who chance upon his studio are often spellbound by his work. "It's strange," says Monk, glancing around his cluttered niche. "Some people feel sucked into that big ball, right there."

The ball, called "The Center of the Universe," is composed of 2,000 different-size cones of stainless steel that Monk painstakingly welded together over seven months. Mathematically designed, it's precisely two meters in diameter, he likes to point out. The labor-intensive ball is priced at $85,000, though profiting from his art doesn't come naturally to Monk.

"I'm lousy at it," he admits. Szabo still laughs at the time she brought her boyfriend (now husband) Tony to meet her dad at his studio for the first time. While they were there, "this guy came in and said, 'I love this piece, I'll give you $5,000 for it' -- or something like that. Pat's reaction was, 'Well, I don't think it's really worth that much.' My husband about hit the ceiling," Szabo says. "He couldn't believe it. But that's very Pat."

About 20 years ago, Monk started something called the Kula Club for a few of his artist friends, including Belshe next door. The idea, he says, came from a story he read about an indigenous people living in the islands of the South Pacific. "They would acquire status by giving things away," explains Monk, who made up a couple of official-looking certificates on which members promised to periodically give away a significant piece of art to an utter stranger.

"But you know," he says, "it's not as easy as you think to give stuff away. As soon as you want to offer it to somebody, they think, Well, how can it be worth anything if he's giving it away? It makes for an interesting encounter."

The process itself is an art experiment. Unfortunately, Monk says, the club has run out of steam recently. It's been more than five years since Monk has surprised someone with a free sculpture. His works are so large now, he says, "it's like giving away a white elephant." Still, he'd like to reactivate the club. Even though he's hale and hardy, he's aware that at his age the opportunities for him to give away his art -- as well as create it -- aren't endless.

Not long ago, he finished a seven-foot steel sculpture that started out shaped a bit like the skeleton of a branching tree, and ended up resembling a tall open cage with a roller-coaster-like slope on top. Monk says it reminds him of a space vehicle ready for launch. He had to kneel for some of the welding, he reports, and "getting up is a lot slower than it used to be." But he wanted to make the sculpture large enough to suggest that a person could climb inside. He named the piece "Departing Soon."

Christina Ianzito is a contributing writer to the Magazine. She can be reached at cianzito@gmail.com.

Do you know a Washington Original? We are looking for the quirky, accomplished but largely unknown characters who enrich the world around us. E-mail intriguing candidates to washingtonoriginals@washpost.com.